I am sat here, just past midnight, totally exhausted and in agony but……..

I am SOO proud of us today…

BabyMibs and myself have achieved so much in such a short time..

It’s been a long hard road at times…

Hard to see a way forward at times…

With all that rubbish in the way!

Then salvation arrived…..thanks to a local farmer giving us some of his feed pallets

And took some shifting across the field!

A bit of cutting down to size later ( ok hacking like crazy with a somewhat rusty old saw!)

DON’T let your 5 year old try this at home folks, mine was especially trained for the pose!

Our very own Grand Design!

A little somewhere to store and recycle ALL THAT BLIDDY GRASS!

( at a fraction of the £100+ the posh gardening magazines charge for similar wooden ones!)

Ours cost us a mere six free pallets, a bag of nails, a possibly fractured if not broken thumb, much cursing, several blistered and splintered fingers, and a strange inability to walk upright once done!

And the best of it?

BabyMibs actually turned to me at the end and said “you made that better than Daddy would have!”

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS lol, it’s the little things in life that please the most, and considering I was in quite a bit of pain BEFORE we started this, and since finishing I can barely move, well, how chuffed am I?

Here I try to share any money/time-saving tips that I have found to be useful each month.

Do feel free to share yours also if you don’t mind me keeping the list updated!

( I will of course name you as the author of your tip!)

NEW TIPS MARCH 2012

Make Your Own Watering-Can!

Today I had just finished potting up the next batch of seedlings into their new larger homes and was about to water them in my usual way for indoor watering with a jug, when I spotted the empty plastic milk bottles that I have been saving up to use as cloches. One brain wave and a few stabs with a small screwdriver later ( be careful and DON’T do what I did and stab yourself in the process!) and hey presto, a fab indoor homemade watering-can!

With a bit of practice, turned upside-down you can control the flow of water simply by squeezing gently!

Make Your Cut Flowers Last Longer

I was given this bunch of flowers a few days after my birthday as a belated birthday present….it’s now almost two months gone and with a bit of careful stem trimming every couple of weeks, and gently pulling off the flower petals that turn brown, I STILL have a lovely display!

Today, I managed to become one very lucky bunny indeed, I was idly leafing through my emails and spotted an ad from our local Freecycle group for something I have been trying to win for ages. I say win, as it is an item on my wish list that is currently way out of reach for my meagre budget.

Now, I feel a little like a lottery winner!

It just goes to show that there IS good karma in life, all those rather expensive at the time toys, clothes and baby equipment that I gave away as BabyMibs was growing up have come back to me bigtime today!

Now all I need is some nice kind supermarket to send me some vouchers so I can actually put some food into it! ( cheeky I know, but you just never know!)

Else it’ll be some time yet before any food graces the shelves!

I kinda spent out with all the moving house costs!

Do spend some of these wintry evenings going through cupboards etc and clearing out what you have no use for anymore, obviously if you can make a little extra spending/bill money by selling then that’s a sensible thing to do, but don’t forget Freecycle, it’s a great way of passing on a little bit of karma, and you just never know, one day it could be YOU in need of something that’s just a bit out of reach!

Here I will try to share any money/time-saving tips that I have found to be useful each month.

Do feel free to share yours also if you don’t mind me keeping the list updated!

( I will of course name you as the author of your tip!)

NEW TIPS FEBRUARY 2012

Keep Your Nails Clean

Don’t do what I just did, and forget your grandmother’s advice to always scrape your nails on a bar of soap before gardening, the object being to fill them with soap so they don’t get all clogged and stained with soil!

( and no, this is not a plug for any particular brand of soap!)

A Crafty Tip

A great tip from my Mother Dearest for all you crafty peeps out there, save those aerosol and similar caps to use as paint/glue pots when you need something to pour a small amount into!

A Measure Of Kitchen Magic

Baby milk scoops make perfect kitchen measures as they usually, levelled off, give you a perfect 1 oz ( do check on the carton before disposing of it though, just in case the different brands vary some!)

And please do ignore the obvious fact that I must starve poor BabyMibs to make him eat scoop handles!

A Fab Toy Storage Solution

As modelled by the scary red-eyed BabyMibs, another fab idea Mother Dearest came up with, instead of paying well over the odds for designer toy storage boxes, why not invest in a couple of under-bed drawers instead?

Mine came with castors attached so easy to move for cleaning, or making extra-large train tracks, and they hold heaps of toys tidily, yet still in view so they get played with and not forgotten!

Now this is a post I shall be following with great interest, I did my math yesterday at current prices, and even ignoring BabyMib’s gift, I’d still struggle to manage a “proper” Christmas on this budget!